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Alert Driven Communications Management for Distance Learning

Alert Driven Communications Management for Distance Learning. Dickson K.W. Chiu , Senior Member, IEEE Dickson Computer Systems, Hong Kong kwchiu@acm.org, dicksonchiu@ieee.org Samuel P.M. Choi School of Business and Administration, The Open University of Hong Kong. schoi@ouhk.edu.hk.

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Alert Driven Communications Management for Distance Learning

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  1. Alert Driven Communications Management for Distance Learning Dickson K.W. Chiu, Senior Member, IEEE Dickson Computer Systems, Hong Kong kwchiu@acm.org, dicksonchiu@ieee.org Samuel P.M. Choi School of Business and Administration, The Open University of Hong Kong. schoi@ouhk.edu.hk

  2. Introduction • Increasing mobility of students and educators • Awareness, accessibility, and responsiveness • Using innovative technology to facilitate learning • Process integration and data integration are required among education partners • Managed multi-channel communications • Alerts - urgent requests and critical messages • Experience from healthcare alert system • Alert Management System (AMS) • Routing, monitoring, and logging the alerts • Find suitable service - application specific considerations like costs, waiting time, service time

  3. Stakeholders of Distance Learning: OUHK • Both human and computerized systems involved • Different degree of computerization

  4. Main problems and requirements • Traditional communications are no longer adequate • online learning platforms • web-based administrative services • cellular phones and pagers • email or instant messenger • Main problems and requirements • Large number of messages require timely communication • Managed multi-channel communications • Seamless Integrations • Web Services supports both type of interaction in a single framework • Both human and computerized systems involved • Different degree of computerization

  5. Role of Alerts in IS What are Alerts? • Different from general events, alerts have more specific attributes, e.g., urgency and service requirements. • Different from exceptions, they need not relate to abnormal behaviors. • asynchronously received by external events / exceptions, incoming E-service requests • synchronously generated by internal E-service application. • handled by the AMS by requesting services: • internal information systems • human service provider • external E-service providers

  6. Alert Conceptual Model

  7. System Architecture

  8. Phased System Implementation • Phase 1 – Call center support system • Phase 2 – Upgrade existing system to support also alerts • Tutoring and discussion system • Venue management system • Assignment management system • Student and tutor monitoring system • Complaint and exception management system

  9. Alert Life Cycle

  10. Defining the policies according to which the urgencies of the alert will evolve Example Alert Urgency Strategy Definition

  11. Advantage from student’s perspective • full-time job during their part-time study • senior management positions: travel frequently • availability of flexible, anytime, anyplace help from tutors • though quality responses are often more important than the response time • AMS reliably routes their questions • finds alternative tutors for assistance • communications among peer students for discussions and group work • communicate with the course coordinator upon exceptions: assignment extensions, attending another tutorial class, changing the tutorial group, or even deferral of examinations and studies

  12. Advantage from educator’s perspective • similar anytime anyplace requirement for the access and management of messages • AMS help keep track of the messages, esp. important and urgent ones • avoid being overwhelmed by the large amount of messages from the students • full-time course coordinators monitor the performance of the tutors (e.g. marking lateness)

  13. Advantage from administrator’s perspective • coordinates the partner institutions’ communication with the students and the tutors • especially upon exceptions such as changes in tutorial venue and tutor absences or substitutions • call center automation • forming a tutor pool to answer student queries: better response time and substitution • monitor the tutors’ performance • data integration with the partner institutes

  14. Conclusions • A conceptual model for specifying alerts based on the requirements of distance learning • A practical architecture for the AMS based on contemporary Web Services – supports human and programmatic interfaces • matching service providers to alert requirements • A mechanism for (re-)routing alerts and increasing their urgency when alerts are not acknowledged or processed within deadline. • Applicability for distance learning • flexible and reusable AMS can be plug into other systems

  15. Future Work • Interfacing and platform-specific issues • Inter-relations among alerts • Failure of commitments and their relation to contract enforcement • managing the diary of the personnel with agents • Impact of cancellations, other possible exceptions • Tradeoff between quality/response time and cost, and service negotiation • Location dependent applications • Workforce management • Mobile CRM

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